Email

Specialty

Certifications

Education

MD, NYU School of Medicine

Residency, Internal Medicine Mount Sinai Sch. of Medicine CUNY

Residency, Internal Medicine Mount Sinai Hospital

Fellowship, Pulmonary/Crit Care Mount Sinai Hospital

Biography

Dr. Nelson received her JD from Harvard Law School, and MD
from New York University School of Medicine.
She is Professor of Medicine at Mount Sinai School of Medicine and is on
the faculty of Mount Sinai’s Hertzberg Palliative Care Institute. She is Associate Director of the Medical
Intensive Care Unit and Respiratory Care Unit at Mount Sinai Medical Center. She is board certified in Internal Medicine,
Pulmonary Disease and Critical Care Medicine, and Palliative Medicine. Dr. Nelson’s research interests relate to
integration of palliative care with critical care in ICUs. She received a Faculty Scholar Award from the
Project on Death in America,
the 2002 Roger C. Bone Award for Advances in End-of-Life Care from the CHEST
Foundation of the American
College of Chest
Physicians, and the 2003 Grenvik Family Award for Ethics from the Society of
Critical Care Medicine. In 2010, she was
named by New York Magazine as one of New York’s Top Doctors in the field of
pulmonary/critical care medicine. Dr.
Nelson is Principal Investigator of a multi-center study funded by NIH to
improve communication and decision-making for patients with chronic critical
illness. She is also the recipient of a
K07 Academic Career Leadership Award from the National Institute on Aging. With support from NIA and the Center to
Advance Palliative Care, she launched The IPAL-ICU Project™ at www.capc.org/ipal-icu to assist in
improving palliative care for ICU patients and their families. Dr. Nelson worked with the Transformation of
the ICU Program by VHA, Inc. to develop the Care and Communication Bundle of
ICU palliative care quality measures, which is posted on the AHRQ National
Quality Measures Clearinghouse Website and is the basis for several other multi-ICU
collaboratives to improve ICU palliative care.
She has participated as faculty in training ICU physicians and nurses in
skills for communicating with families of critically ill patients. She is currently working with the Institute
for Healthcare Improvement, Veterans Integrated Service Network 3, and VHA,
Inc. on programs to improve ICU palliative care quality. Dr. Nelson has authored numerous publications
and lectures frequently across the United States as well as
abroad.

Research

Intersections of palliative medicine and critical care medicine. The overall goal of Dr. Nelson's research program is to understand and improve the experience of acute and chronic critical illness for patients and their families.

Nelson JE, Nierman DM. Special Concerns for the very old. In: Curtis JR, Rubenfeld GD, editors. Managing Death in the ICU: The Transition from Cure to ComfortSpecial Concerns for the very old. New York, Oxford University Press; 2001.

Industry Relationships

Physicians and scientists on the faculty of the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai often interact with pharmaceutical, device and biotechnology companies to improve patient care, develop new therapies and achieve scientific breakthroughs. In order to promote an ethical and transparent environment for conducting research, providing clinical care and teaching, Mount Sinai requires that salaried faculty inform the School of their relationships with such companies.

Dr. Nelson did not report having any of the following types of financial relationships with industry during 2014 and/or 2015: consulting, scientific advisory board, industry-sponsored lectures, service on Board of Directors, participation on industry-sponsored committees, equity ownership valued at greater than 5% of a publicly traded company or any value in a privately held company. Please note that this information may differ from information posted on corporate sites due to timing or classification differences.